The present invention relates to a screen printing machine for the production of printed hybrid circuit boards. More particularly, the present invention relates to a screen printing machine, a basic support housing, a printing table, having an upper surface portion for a circuit board to be printed, mounted on the support housing for horizontal movement along a path between a first position for receiving a circuit board to be printed and a second printing position, and a vertically raising frame member attached to the support housing and extending above the path of movement of the printing table.
Such screen printing machines are known to be employed to imprint hybrid printed circuit boards with thick-film pastes, with the printed-on pastes subsequently being burnt in or fired on the circuit board in a kiln. In this well-known prior art process, the circuit boards have in the past been cleaned of dust or other adhering particles before each printing process by being subjected to manually applied compressed air, for example, by air pistols.
The drawback in this manual cleaning process is that, because of the pointed orientation of the stream of compressed air, a cleaning process by means of air pistols is actually not very effective. If, nevertheless, the desired degree of cleanliness is to be attained, considerable expenditures in time are required which again are cost intensive because of the personnel required to accomplish this cleaning process.